Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 2.djvu/268

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PAT-MER


240


PALMER


("Transactions, Michigan State Medical Society," 1873.)

" Contrasted Cases of Phthisis." ("Phy- sician and Surgeon," Ann Arbor, vol. i.)

" Remarkable Atrophy of the Abdomi- nal Walls in a Female." (Il^d, vol. i.)

"The Treatment of Malarial Fever." ("Michigan I'liiversity Medical Journal," vol. ii.)

L. C.

Representative Men in Mieh., West. Bio- Kraphical Co., Cincinnati, Ohio, 1S78, vol. ii. History of the University of Mich., Ann .\rbor, 1906.

A Memorial Discourse on the Life and Ser- vices of Alonzo Benjamin Palmer, M. D., LL. D., by Corjdon L. Ford, M. D., LL. D., The University Press, 1888, Medical Age, 1887. Med. Record, N. Y., 1887, vol. xxxii. Trans. Mich. State Med. Soc, Detroit. 1888, Memorial volume, Alonzo Benjamin Pal- mer, 1890, Riverside Press, Cambridge, by Mrs. Palmer.

Palmer, James Croxall (1811-1883).

James Croxall Palmer, surgeon-general of the United States Navy, was descended from an old English family. He studied medicine at the University of Maryland and was commissioned assistant surgeon in the navy in 1834. He spent seventeen years of his life in actual sea-cruises. In 1842 he was promoted to the rank of surgeon. Palmer served in the Mexican as well as in the Civil War. He was with Farragut on the Hartford in the famous battle of Mobile Bay. In 1871 he was appointed medical director and on June 10, 1872, surgeon-general of the navy. He retired June 29 of the same year, and died in Washington, April 24, 1883.

A. A.

Stone, Biogr. Em. Am. Phys. and Surg,, Indianapolis, 1898.

Pahner, John Williamson (1825-1906).

He was born in Baltimore, Maryland, April 4, 1825, the son of Edward Palmer, a merchant and descended from Edward Palmer, 1572-1625, the Oxford scholar and antiquarian, who in 1624 designed the foundation of the first college of arts


in America on Palmer's Island, at the mouth of the Susquehanna.

Dr. Palmer graduated M. D. from the department of medicine of the Univer- sity of Maryland, in 1846. He practised for some years, being first city physician of San Francisco, 1849-50, and surgeon in the East India Company's service in the second Burmese War, 1851-52. After traveling extensively in China, Hindustan and other far Eastern coun- tries, he returned to the United States in 1853 and abandoned medicine for litera- ture. During the Civil War he was southern correspondent for the " New York Tribune"; attach^ of the confeder- ate government charged with singular and hazardous responsibilities skillfully and bravely discharged, and valued volunteer on the staff of Maj.-gen. John C. Breckenridge. After the War he settled in New York City.

The following are the titles of some of his works: " The Queen's Heart," comedy, 1858; "The New and the Old, or Cali- fornia and India," 1859; "Up and Down the Irrawaddi," and "Folk Songs," 1860; "Epidemic Cholera," 1866; "The Poetry of Compliment and Courtship," 1867; "The Beauties and Curiosities of Engrav- ing," 1879; "A PortfoUo of Autograph Etchings," 1882; "After his Kind," 1886; "For Charlie's Sake and Other Lyrics and Ballads," 1901. He trans- lated "L'Amour" (Michelet), 1859, "La Femme" (Michelet), 1859, "Histoire Morale des Femmes" (Legouve), 1860. Years before Bret Harte discovered the California of fiction. Palmer had revealed it in such stories as "The Fate of the Farleighs," "The Old Abode," "Mr. Karl Joseph Ivraft of the Old Cah- fornians," and a number of others. He also contributed to the leading magazines and was one of the editors of the Cen- tury and Standard Dictionaries.

Palmer thus had a varied experience as traveler, editor, prose wTiter and poet, but it was especially in the last-named role, that he achieved fame and success. As a lyric poet he shines pre-eminent among Americans. His style is spirited